FCC Releases Channel Repack Analysis, Updated OET-69 Software

WASHINGTON — TV
regulators have once again updated the software they will use to repack TV
stations into the spectrum that remains after next year’s incentive auctions,
concurrent with the release of a repacking analysis and related data. The
Federal Communications Commission has issue the second update of its TVStudy
software, the program based on OET-69, the agency’s methodology for calculating
a TV station’s coverage area, plus a 37-page Technical Appendix for how it
could be applied.

“One of the key advantages of the TVStudy Version 1.2 software is its ability
to easily replicate multiple stations to generate various nationwide scenarios,”
the commission said. The user interface was updated, as well as the software’s
ability to generate “pairwise” interference data files. These pairwise files
are described as “yes-or-no determinations of whether interference is predicted
from one television station to another at a particular location,” according to
the Appendix. The criterion used to make these determinations is reception by
“the same specific viewers for each eligible station.”

This criterion is derived from the commission’s October 2012 Incentive Auction
Notice of Propose Rulemaking, which laid out three possible options for meeting
the Congressional mandate of making “all reasonable effort” to preserve TV
station coverage areas and populations served as of Jan. 3, 2012. (The date
Congress passed the Spectrum Act.)

The first option limited new interference to half a percent or less for a
population served as of Feb. 22, 2012. Noting that this could change which households experienced
interference, the second option was to preserve service to the “same specific
viewers.” This would presume the same areas of interference, but potentially by
different stations, after a repack. The third and most restrictive option was
to allow only the same amount of interference between the same stations. (An
addendum to option No. 3 allowed for a 2 percent increase in interference.)

In the NPRM, the commission made clear that it preferred the first approach
because it provided the most flexibility in a repack, and met the Congressional
mandate by preserving service “to
approximately the same number of viewers. The National Association of
Broadcaster opposed the method because it would potentially reduce a station’s geographic
reach.

In the TVStudy extrapolation described in the Technical Appendix, the
commission used Option No. 2—the same specific viewers—but emphasized that it
do so for illustrative purposes only.

“The commission has made no decision on them yet,” the Notice stated.

In addition to tweaking the TVStudy software, the commission’s Office of
Engineering and Technology consolidated other input data, including Canadian
and Mexican TV allotments, as well as domestic licensing information, in a “format
that can be used more easily with the updated software,” the commission said. Using
the data, the software can calculate which stations can be assigned to which
channels, and which ones cannot be located on the same or adjacent channels in neighboring
markets.

TVStudy Vers. 1.2 has several functions not available in the previous release,
including the ability to:

Automatically conduct pairwise studies;

Define parameters of Mexican allotments that lack height and power data in the
commission’s database;

The commission said the information in the Public Notice and the Technical
Appendix could be used to determine the feasibility of moving TV stations
during bidding in the reverse auction—the process for broadcasters to assess
demand for their spectrum.

“Such a ‘feasibility check’ could be conducted rapidly during the course of
bidding in the reverse auction because it would only require determining
whether a channel assignment is feasible for a set of stations, not that it
represents the optimal channel assignment,” the commission said. “Optimization
analysis is time-consuming; conducting it during the course of bidding in the
reverse auction would restrict the commission’s auction design options.”

The feasibility data could be used to optimize channel assignments after the
fact, the commission said. Optimization could be used in a sealed-bid auction
to “determine which bids to accept in order to obtain a given amount of
spectrum at minimum cost.” The Notice stressed that such scenarios are
theoretical, and that “bidders need not know or master the technical details” to
participate.

Additional repacking components, such as algorithms related to how bids will be
selected and channels assigned, will be released “in the coming months,” it
said. The final design will be approved by the full commission.

Also see…
April 26, 2013: “FCC
Releases Updated OET-69 TVStudy Software”
“This
update addresses an issue with calculation cell indexing that can result in the
population of some cells not being correctly considered, and which may cause
the program to crash in unusual instances.”